


Chapter 6

by Adge



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-16 14:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20837513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adge/pseuds/Adge
Summary: Thanks to all the Finnish speakers in the SSSS Fandom for the translation of Lalli's chant.





	Chapter 6

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to all the Finnish speakers in the SSSS Fandom for the translation of Lalli's chant.

**Chapter 6**

“Listen to me, lingering spirits,  
Wandering from the way of Tuoni  
I adjure you gently, clearly  
I request you quietly, sweetly  
Far from this place fare and journey,  
Wide berth leave us, long our parting.  
Nameless ginnels, nameless corners,  
Nameless houses know your roaming.”  
Lalli, noita, long he sang them,  
Then he changed his chanting's motion:  
“Now in anger, now command you  
Now be silent narking spirits  
Lest I force you, leave you helpless  
From the mage-realm main my soul-beast  
Cast the bloody curse upon you  
Boulders crush you back to shadows!”  
So Lalli’s wrath the radio cleared  
To talk freely. Tuuri skald-maid  
Contact achieves with their comrades at base  
Reports the quest: the people safe,  
A dozen books redeemed from fire  
But the rest lost in the lair-burning  
Of Emil’s fight, his foe’s shending,  
And the team’s escape. Skald-maid Tuuri  
Is moved aside by Mikkel the cook:  
Reports finding a fault in their stores –  
A case of supplies has candles for food;  
For the team's bellies a ballast unfit  
To bring them home. The bridge is gone  
To Öresund; Olsen, Danish,  
Mishearing, claims the hoard-seekers  
Scathed wantonly the sky-faring;  
The four schemers, scotching the charge,  
His help request; the high-voiced Dane,  
Crannog-fort admiral, the crew ignores –  
Saving his office no succour tends;  
But Trond fox-wily a trick can play:  
The old schemer scans his records,  
Locating a ship whose captain hides  
A past history that a handle gives  
To the party’s need. Pivoting her track  
The Icelandic ocean-farer,  
Sail-flying tramp, trader sea-wain,  
Túnfiskurinn turns to Denmark;  
With her pride scotched, skipper Àsa,  
Of blemished past, by blackmail forced,  
Unwilling carrier, cases of food  
Agrees to land where a lighthouse marks  
An ancient dock, desolate remnant  
From the doomed time of the Danish bid  
To reclaim their land; a clear tryst-stead  
For the hoard-seekers, hungry, waiting  
For the wherry’s lade. A whale-bane gar  
Aimed too loosely for Emil’s pride  
Crosses the gap: two crates steering  
Above the sea to the band waiting  
On the landing-stead. Unlidding the first  
Reveals a wealth of vegetable food;  
Emil the other opens and slams  
The lid hard down. Desperate he shouts  
Calling the team that the case is filled  
With living freight – loud and quickly  
Sigrun shouts him to shoot it dead  
Ere it shend the team, but unsure Emil  
Calls to the rest caution to show  
Whether the freke is friend or enemy  
Hard is to guess, but human it seems  
From his quick look. The lid slowly  
Raising, reveals a red-haired lad,  
Lissom, harmless, Icelandic in speech,  
Asking for Bornholm. The boat has gone,  
The miffed captain makes her escape,  
Though Sigrun shouts at the ship’s stern  
As it disappears with its debts paid  
Over the horizon. Wrathful, desperate,  
Norse-tongued Sigrun the new boy gives  
To Emil’s care – custody the Swede  
Believes is meant, though Mikkel tries  
To spell the truth. Speeding inland  
To the parked cat-tank, the party snatch  
The far-caller the farer to name  
To the mission-earls on the mer-castle  
But the folk at base fob off the crew,  
Promising to call the appropriate powers  
To acquire help. Questions unanswered  
Mikkel releases the lost redhead  
From Emil’s care, casting to grasp  
Why he was fixed in the food crate  
Car unhandy for human freight  
Over the fish-road. First courtesies:  
The red-headed lad Reynir is named  
Árnason born in Iceland’s realm  
Of farming stock. His folk immune  
Through dagrenning, his doom alone  
To be at risk from the rash sickness.  
Home is his haven, but his heart cankers  
His haven a jail, joyless, gateless  
Except for a flight unsanctioned, unblessed,  
To Reykjavik and the roads seaward,  
A city free to frommed traders,  
Makers, chandlers, merchant sea-wains,  
Outcome strangers and Iceland’s folk  
Their goods exchange and gomes for hire  
As hands recruit. A hoarding declares  
Bornholm the port for a berthed ship –  
Túnfiskurinn – today leaving  
For the undaunted folk, for Denmark’s holt,  
For the island realm. Reynir, ill-schooled,  
To the name attaches a tale recalled  
Of southward lands, sunkissed and warm,  
Covered with palm trees and colour-clad blooms.  
He begs for work from the boat’s owners  
Gains appointment as a galley hand  
Unpaid, friendless, a peon condemned  
To the galley sink, his goal bungled –  
For his boss warns him of the ban on crew:  
By the frommed laws unfree to land  
At the sun-warm docks of Denmark’s isle.  
But a crisis comes; two crates unload  
At a dock unkenned, a curious task,  
A chore unplanned, a chance for Reynir!  
So he lurks unseen in the lading bay,  
Voids a freight-shell of its victual stock,  
Cowers in the space where cans of tuna  
Hoped for the plates of the hoard seekers,  
And the rest is known. The radio folk  
Come back to talk; but the base team's help  
Is empty words – the errant guest  
Must be cossetted, cared for and fed  
Till a sea-guardian is sent to fetch  
All six comrades and receive them home  
In quarantine. To quit his debt  
Mikkel suggests cooking the lad  
For supper at need; Sigrun prefers  
A handy troll bait; but the home party  
Lay that the caitiff be kept alive.


End file.
